Things lately, or late things.

It's been quite a while since I've written. I've been pretty busy lately, is why - I'm taking 5 classes in my major, and they're all quite a bit of work. I'm auditing Chinese, too...I should be writing more and speaking more than I am, but, I have been busy. Heheh...and all this while trying to keep things up with 家寧, who had the bad taste and contrariness to be born on the other side of the planet. (She knows what I've been up to! But I guess the rest of you don't.)

I'm taking so much at once because I thought I still needed 30 credit hours to graduate - before the semester started. After it did, though, I found that, in fact, I only need one class more to graduate after this.
And I can't take that other class now, or in a shortened form! Agh. So I'm here one more semester, for one class, when I could be in Taiwan. It's possible that I might be able to do it by correspondence, but that would really depend on the teacher.

I'd be able to handle all the classwork, normally - I've done this much before. But I've fallen behind. My truck didn't get driven much while I was away. It did get used, but not enough. I feel bad saying it - my dad spent $1000 of his own money trying to get it running again right before I got back.
And I've spent, maybe not $1000, but a significant amount of time trying to get that damn thing fixed. Obviously I don't have any money, since I haven't worked in over a year, and just got back from a year of spending (a very pleasant one, though! You should try it sometime! Except I'm afraid you'll have to find your own girl/guy to fall in love with. Unless you've already found someone...which many of you have...so...skip that last part.), so I can't afford to put it in the shop - and I don't really trust them, anyway.

Heh. Actually, I had been thinking recently, if I'm going to be married soon, I'd better know how to fix cars at least a little. So I'd been wondering about how to go about that. And then my car is broken! Prayers really do get answered!

So, yeah, I have the Haynes manual for my truck, and I'm pretty good at guessing, so that's what I've been doing.
And it's mostly worked.

I don't even remember what all I've done, but, among other things, my fuel injectors started acting up. I took them out - the number 5 was dead, I think, and it looked...clean...which was not a good sign, as the rest of them were so filthy I thought they'd melted. Heheh. A little cleaning fluid fixed that right up. It's amazing stuff.
And a new fuel injector. 5 was dead.
There was the fuel pressure regulator, too.
And a new fuel strainer and filter. And spark plugs. And oxygen sensors. I think the oxygen sensors started a lot of it, actually.
A new fuel pump, too.
Mostly my truck wouldn't go very fast or reliably; it chugged a lot, it smoked, it backfired, and on a few occasions, it died. It liked staying dead, too. And unfortunately, it didn't always die at convenient times.

Part of this was also because the fuel tank was rusty. It was like looking into a deep-sea wreck. Except you can't smell gas underwater...so far as I know. And, though the minorest of rediscovered relics often find absurdly overblown praise, no one would have been excited at its discovery, except maybe fuel-tank sellers. I wasn't - excited or a seller (nor a scrap-metal buyer).
So, in addition to the truck not always knowing how much gas it needed due to the malfunctioning O2 sensors, the rust flakes were plugging up the fuel pump and filter.
So that was a pretty good combo for a dead truck.

I spent a lot of time fixing it - each time I thought I'd got it about done. Well, that's not true. When it was chugging and misfiring, I knew it wasn't right, but I thought maybe if I just added some fuel cleaner it'd get better in time. In reply, my truck died.
Death is a lousy form of correspondence.

So anyway, I'd gotten everything I mentioned above done, and at first, things were working real well. After a couple days, I noticed it had less power and some hesitation starting.

So I'm going to school one day. The truck is getting shuddery on the way to Athens. I'm concerned, naturally, but I figure it'll be alright. It is sometimes. I'm optimistic. And I do get to school just fine. I end up getting there a little late due to my truck, and so I have to park on the fifth floor of the parking garage. That's almost at the roof - I've never parked up there, and that morning, I'd never seen the top, either, and I thought about parking up there just for the novelty of it.
I didn't though. I got lazy.

I went to class, like usual. I talked to 家寧 on Skype for a couple hours, like I usually do, since there's a big gap between my two classes on Tuesdays and Thursdays. My last class on that day got out at 4:45, and, since I get there at about 9:20 or so in the morning, I'd had plenty of time to forget that my truck was acting up.


So I went out to start it. I was anxious to get home; it'd been another long day and I was hungry.

It didn't start.

So I wasn't happy, but this was also nothing new. I started messing with things - when I'd tried to start it, the engine had turned, but it was not firing up, and I couldn't smell gas or anything, so I guessed probably it wasn't getting any fuel. Or that it didn't have any fuel. It was really, really low...so I decided it might be out of gas. I was hopeful. There's a gas station just a block or two away, so I decided to go there.

It had looked like rain all day. Naturally, the moment I stepped out of the parking garage, it started raining. So I started jogging. Then it started pouring. I always was fond of reciprocity.
So I jogged uphill the one or two blocks to the gas station, by which point I was rather confident about my non-flammability.
I grabbed a new gas can (probably the 6th or 7th that I've bought - my parent's garage is beginning to be littered with them...hmm...a litter of gas cans...what would whelp that? A gas could? Oh, sorry, that's a lousy pun.), noticed it cost more than the gas I would buy, and walked the the counter.
The guy looked at me funny.
Now, you may not know this, but I like rain. I grew up in the desert, remember. Also, I think I like miserable conditions. I nearly always smile, unless I'm really in a lot of pain from it. So, if I get stuck running in the rain, I don't complain - I smile. Especially when it's dumb or absurd. I kind of enjoy times like that.
So this guy sees me, wearing about 10 gallons of water and an idiot grin, holding a gas can, and says something like, "well, at least you got a good attitude." I agree, thank him, and go get my gas.
It does, in fact, cost less than the can it's in.

So I start running back down the hill and discover - oddly - that my hand is getting wet. I thought it was wet already. I didn't know wetter felt different.
I didn't put it together for a few more steps...
and then I realized I was sloshing gasoline out of the can and onto my hand. That's why it felt cooler!
It turns out the can lacked a tight seal. So I walked the rest of the way.

I got back to my truck, wet, smelling of gas, and hopeful. I flipped up the fueling hatch, dumped in what remained of the gas, and discovered that only most of the remainder was obtainable. The rest, due to the poor design of the gas container, could not be poured out. So I twisted the thing around in an effort to get the rest out, and I succeeded, but as you guessed, nearly none went into my truck.

Still, it was probably a gallon and a half. More than enough to run a vehicle.

I got in the cab, got my hopes up, and turned the key.
*cough*
*grr-rrr-rrr*
nice. I tried again.
*grr-rrr-rrr*
Yeah. I always liked getting growled at.

So, since I truly am a pretty optimistic person, I decided to pull out the fuse for the fuel relay, or whatever it might be called (I forgot and I'm too lazy to look right now), in hopes that when I put it back in, the fuel lines would automatically be re-pressurized.
And sure enough, when I plugged it back in and turned the key, I heard the fuel pump doing something.
Not anything particularly, just something.

I turned the key again.
More coughing.

Well, that was unpleasant but not unexpected.
I decided to see if there was pressure in the fuel lines, so I took it apart just up from the fuel filter - there was fuel in the line. And just below it, as well. I knew this because it all spilled out on me. I knew that would happen, of course; I'd positioned myself so it wouldn't spill on my face - so it managed to dribble all over the metalworks down there, from which the path to my face and other non-fuel-using parts was fairly clear.

So that seemed fine. There was fuel in the lines. So I thought maybe the fuel pump was dead - if the filter had been too clogged, there would be little or no fuel on the up side of the filter. Of course, if the fuel pump was dead, why would there be any fuel in the lines at all? But I didn't know. I had to have some sort of answer, even a bad one.
I messed around some more, but I don't remember with what. This was all taking some time, and I actually had some people stop and ask if everything was alright. That surprised me. I think it makes a difference if people see you, and can't pass quickly. They're more likely to stop then. Or maybe it's a thing of being used to seeing things in certain places - it's normal for people to be broken down on the side of the road - it happens all the time and is nothing remarkable. But being broken down in a parking garage is not normal.

So, having concluded that it was a simple matter of a dead fuel pump, I decided the best thing to do would be to call a towtruck. It's a long trip from Athens to my house - about 45 miles - so getting towed is not cheap. Even so, it's going to be cheaper than going to the shop. And it wouldn't be the first time that month. Besides, this time I had a cellphone with a towing plan.


(I'll continue this sometime soon. It won't be a 3 month wait, this time. Heheh. And, in case you were wondering, no, I didn't forget about the other things that are unfinished. I am actually working on one of them, slowly.)

to be continued....